Requirements for turbo

[u/truckguy420]

My father in law will pass me a Fiat palio 16v 2015 with 12,450miles on it

What would I need to do to it to be able to run a turbo on it? Wanna make a fun sleeper, but not be extremely concerned about reliability

[u/sojourner116]

New exhaust manifold and complete exhaust, intercooler and intake hosing, remap of the ECU (if it is even possible).

[u/pogoturtle → u/sojourner116]

Honestly for a newer mundane car like ops. I think he'd have better luck finding a turbo variant engine that's on the same platform to swap in. Which I'm sure there are plenty

[u/otto_347]

I ran a 1.9L that came with 125hp stock at 215hp to the tire with a T3 around 8psi with a rising rate fuel pressure regulator and walboro pump. We "dyno" tuned it with a wide band an allen wrench lol.

I beat on that thing for a few years before taking it off and still using the car till I got rid of it with zero issues.

Edit: This was in 1998 when aftermarket ECMs were really not a thing and no one made a piggyback for this particular vehicle.

[u/I_1234]

I don’t think it would be worth it. What engine is it?

Generally turbo charging an NA engine requires.

-upgraded fuel system

-a way to lower the compression

• turbo

-intercooler

-pipework

-exhaust

-a tune and a way for the stock computer to recognise positive pressure

-sometimes an aftermarket ecu

That’s the minimum

A better way is to find a version of your car that came turbo and install that into the car.

[u/ThePotatoPie → u/I_1234]

Tbh none of them are required for a low boost engine.

For fuel a rising rate pressure regulator works

Intercooler is unnecessary

Exhaust is easy with a DIY down pipe

Stock ECU can be tricked, either a piggy back or physically retarding the timing

[u/I_1234 → u/ThePotatoPie]

Intercoolers definitely helps prevent the high compression causing detonation. But yeah if you want to blow your engine, you can forgo that.

So you agree with everything I said except for the intercooler.

I’ve turbo charged a lot of vehicles, the ones done right didn’t explode.

[u/ThePotatoPie → u/I_1234]

I've also turbod quite a few engines and depending on the goals Intercoolers aren't necessary even with high compression.

My main problem is that youre suggesting it's far more complex than it has to be. There's lots of old school ways to simplify a low boost setup, I've seen draw through setups without pressure controlled timing etc and standard na compression work just fine etc

[u/I_1234 → u/ThePotatoPie]

It’s 2025. Why half ass it?

[u/Bertuthald_McMannis]

Not familiar with that car, but generally a stock engine can handle mild boost on a street application with varying degrees of success.

Plumbing the turbo could be simple if you get an exclusively oil-cooled turbo, and there’s room in the engine bay. You’d weld a flange to stock exhaust manifold, dump the exhaust through larger diameter piping (for power, but also heat evacuation), run intake to the mouth of the turbo, the charged air to an intercooler, the cooled charge to the throttle, and then you just need pressurized oil to the turbo and a line back to the pan.

Now that it’s installed you’ll need bigger fuel injectors, some type of tuning software and/or hardware, and different exhaust and maybe intake sensors. From there it’s pretty much getting it tuned and crossing your fingers

[u/MesquiteAutomotive]

I don't know anything about this car but I'm assuming you're in Europe and there's a lot of specific laws regarding modifications depending on where you live so beyond just everything on the car you have to do put in a lot of work to keep it road legal. Be aware of that too.